"god With Us: The Light Of The World"

“God with Us, The Light of the World”

John 1:1-14

Do you know that within our solar system we are the 4th largest planet?

93 million miles away from us is our star—the sun.

The sun is a pretty big star but it is no-where near as big as some of the other stars we know about.

One such star is 5 billion times the size of our sun.

We are part of the milky way galaxy.

And there are trillions of stars in our galaxy.

And all of them are circled by at least one planet, such as our own.

Within our Milky Way Galaxy we are not the only solar system.

So far, astronomers have found over 500 solar systems and are discovering new ones every year.

Scientists estimate that there are 10’s of billions of solar systems in our galaxy alone.

Through the Hubble Telescope, we have been able to see a very small slice of space and it shows hundreds of galaxies.

500 Billion light years away from us is something called the cosmic web where billions and billions of galaxies—just like our galaxy—reside.

And that is our universe.

But what is beyond our universe?

Scientists believe there are other universes.

I mean, compared to the eternal heavens, we are smaller than we can ever even begin to imagine.

Think about this, there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on earth!

And yet, and yet, the God Who created all this and controls all this—down to the smallest microscopic particles known to humankind took on flesh and became one of us.

Oh, the audacity of our faith.

It is WAY beyond our comprehension.

And yet, and yet, I believe it to be true.

How about you?

As incomprehensible as it seems, the cosmic eternal Christ, the preexisting Word, is also a flesh and blood person, Who was born to a particular woman in a particular town at a particular time and died a painful physical death.

This incomprehensible mystery is what we mean when we talk about the Central theme of Christmas—That God became one of us.

The One Who shouted, “Let there be light!” came to us in Jesus.

The Word—the creative power and wisdom of God that spoke all things into existence—took on flesh as an infant in Bethlehem.

What are we to do about all this?

Think about it, John begins with the familiar words of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning…”

In Genesis 1 God creates all that is by speaking: “Then God said…”

As God speaks, everything comes to be.

In John Chapter 1 Jesus is described as the Word and, as John says, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

And because of this, the relationship between God and humanity has been forever altered.

Calvin imagines God speaking “baby-talk” to us in Christ—so that we might know the unknowable One.

But we will still not, necessarily accept Him.

Starting at verse 10 we are told that “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”

Jesus Christ is Wisdom, Scripture, reason, and the ordering force of all reality.

His story and the story of the cosmos is the same story.

His story is the story of REALITY.

But why does not everyone accept it?

Why does not everyone believe?

Could it be that we live in a veil of such thick darkness that it is too easy for us to ignore the existence of Christ?

Could it be that too many of us want things on our terms, want to live life our way and to do things our way that we are unwilling to accept the free gift of faith and thus salvation?

Could it be that the temptation to sin is that strong?

Could it be that our nature is that bent—that we are unwilling to live lives in accordance to the defining principal of all that is?

There can be no doubt that this world is incredibly complex.

The cosmos are beyond our abilities to grasp.

And God is so BIG, so OTHER, that how can we possibly come to know Him on a personal basis?

And how can it be that God has become one of us?

That is where faith comes into play.

Our faith, our everything—even our thoughts that tell us “No, no, no” this cannot possibly be true—don’t quite overcome the TRUTH that Jesus is God.

And that God has created everything.

And that our calling in life is to accept this…

…live into this…

…apply it to our lives and become the bearers of this good news in all we say and do.